Ministry of Education
A National webinar on Effective Governance and Standard Settingheld under ShikshakParv initiative
A webinar on Effective Governance and Standard Settingwas organized by Ministry of Education under ShikshakParv initiative on 24th September 2020. The target beneficiary group for this session were Pre-school, Lower Primary Teachers, Heads of Schools, Parents, and All States/UTs Education Departments.ShikshakParvis being organised by Ministry of Educationfrom 8th September- 25th September, 2020 to felicitate the Teachers and to take New Education Policy 2020 forward.
Prof. N.V. Varghese, Vice Chancellor, NIEPA; Dr. K Vijayan, Assistant Professor, DTE, NCERT, Prof. A.K. Srivastava, Dean Research andHead, DEPFE, NCERTand Dr. UshaKhare, Principal, Govt. Girls Higher Secondary SchoolJahangirabad, Bhopal were the speakers on the occasion.
Prof. Varghesefocused on the issues present in standard setting and accreditation.He covered various issues during his presentation. He said that the trend in many countries is to set ambitious standards and then using these standards to measure accountability. Standards are used to ensure that teachers and school are held responsible and that the teaching-learning process progresses systematically. NPE 1968 focused on creating school facilities, while NPE 1986 sought to create facilities in the classroom. It was in the 1990s that the concept of minimum levels of learning came to the forefront. He highlighted that there were two major issues that need to be addressed. First, students are not learning what they should be learning. Second, there is wide variation in what students are learning in different schools. Generally, surveys show that mostly private schools perform better than government schools, with the exception of KendriyaVidyalayas and NavodayaVidyalayas. Globally, there has been a shift from emphasis on schooling to learning. This has put pressure on schools. Parents prefer to send their children to private schools. Society's demand on performance of schools and student has increased over time, he added.
Prof. Srivastava’s presentation focused on the National Education Policy 2020  recommendation of school complexes and its implementation. The main recommendations of
NEP 2020 for School Complexes/Clustersis as below-
- Grouping the schools by 2025 by State/UT governments into school complexes
- To ensure adequate number of counsellors and teachersfor all subjects
- Ensuring adequate resources 
- Developing a sense of community among schools toovercome isolation
- Soliciting cooperation among schools for CWD
- Devolving decision making to group of schools
Functions of School Complex
- Purpose is decentralisation of power to bring in improvedand efficient governance of schools at the cluster level
- Directorate of School Education will devolve authority toschool complexes and will be treated as semi-autonomousunits
- DEO and BEO will interact with school complex
- School complex treated as single unit and will be givenautonomy to perform certain tasks
- All schools will be gain strength and contribute towardsmaking complex stronger
- Autonomy towards providing integrated education, toexperiment with pedagogies/ curriculum in line NCF/SCF
Development of School/ Complex Plans
- Short and long-term plans to be developed by clusters
- Schools will develop their plans involving clusters, whichwill form basis of SCDP
- SCDP will be created by principals and teachers ofcomplex and SCMC
- Plan will include human, learning, physical, financialresources, improvement initiatives, school cultureinitiatives, teacher development plans, and educationaloutcomes.
Dr.Khare shared the practitioner’s perspective and how she overcame the challenges of governance in her school. She describedvarious challenges in schoolslike infrastructure which covers poor location, lack of facilities, encroachment and unclean environment, outdated knowledge, fear of change and lack of using technology of teachers, lack of awareness and poorparticipation ofParents andIrregularity, missing value system, lack of motivation, casualness, and no respect for self and others for Students.
She gave following suggestions on how we can overcome thesechallenges -
- Preparing your own mindset –knowledge of psychology and education, good training and long experience, confidence, problem solving attitude, determination, positive approach and openness to challenges.
- Improving the environment –getting rid of waste inventories, reuse and recycle of outdated materials, enriching the school walls with painting and decorations, clean &Swachhinitiatives and creation of work culture.
- Creating network- listing of support system,establishing contacts, ensuring invitation &participation and creating an “AapsiSamajSamiti” - a local community of school well-wishers.
- Building student strength- creating brand value of the school, transition from Hindi to English, community participation in school activities and events, marketing and promotion.
- Collaboration- listing of requirements and planning, allocation of task and responsibility to partners, providing necessary support and environment, decision-making, monitoring and guidance, results analysis and improvement, appreciation and recognition.